


Your Own Personal Imperio

by Juul



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-War, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 23:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7011967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juul/pseuds/Juul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco was sentenced to House Arrest for eighteen months after the war, and as time passes he comes into himself more and more until one day he has simply stopped talking, stopped eating, stopped caring, stopped being everything that made him Draco. This is how Harry finds him when he comes to tell him his parole is over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Own Personal Imperio

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's notes:** Thanks for my bro for the beta’ing. Any remaining mistakes are mine. Due to personal circumstances, this was written in a bit of a hurry. As a result, I’m not completely happy with it. I might do a rewrite or a sequel sometime in the future
> 
> Written for the HP Mental Health Fest 2016 on LJ

The Manor is a big building. It has almost forty rooms, and for the past year and a half Draco has only occupied one. Two, if you count the bathroom. There’s one elf still left over in the house, but she can’t keep up with he chores. The entire upper part of the Manor has been covered in grey sheets and fallen into disuse.

Draco just sits in this room; the small bedroom he spent his adolescence in. Quidditch posters and potions kits are still strewn all over the place. Everything is covered in a fine layer of dust. Sometimes Dolly attempts to clean it up, but Draco won’t let her. He can’t bear the racket of her knocking over his stuff, and she’s not exactly stealthy. 

So, he just lies in the four poster bed, between the ridiculously expensive dark green sheets, and waits for time to pass. Or something. At first he was definitely waiting for time to pass. It would pass, he knew, and eighteen months of house arrest really wasn’t so bad. Goyle had gotten almost twice as long, and Crabbe had been punished in a way that he still found too gruesome to contemplate.

But then time had started to slow down, to drip down like a particularly thick potion trickles from its vial, and stretch itself out over the unbearably long days. Draco’s body had gone heavy and slow, like he had been hit by some kind of jinx, and his mind, in turn, had sped up. It now showed him a constant slideshow of all the things that had already gone wrong in his life, as well as everything that hadn’t happened yet and thus still had the potential to be a disaster. The weight of his thoughts soon became too much; he couldn’t move.

Dolly, loyal creature that she was, continued to bring him food. When he did not touch it, she took the considerable effort of preparing all of the dishes that he had once loved: leg of lamb, smooth mashed potatoes, the creamy onion soup his mother always made. But it didn’t make a difference. His mother had escaped the aftermath of the war by paying a visit to relatives in France, and without her, the soup tasted thin and runny. So, disgusted by the taste of almost everything and the textures on his tongue, he stopped eating.

He stopped sleeping soon after that. There wasn’t much to do to tire him out, yet he was perpetually exhausted. He lay in bed and hoped that he would disappear. He hoped a giant would come and destroy his childhood home. He hoped he would die in his sleep, or be transported to a place where nothing ever happened. 

Then, one day, there was someone at the door. Draco registered the sound, for it was loud and terrible, and his nerves were rubbed raw like someone had spilled bubotuber pus on them. He moved his leg incrementally, just a little closer to his chest so he could curl up into a ball. The movement felt heavy and unnatural. Had he been put under some kind of modified Imperius curse? He didn’t feel particularly compelled to do any specific thing. Actually, he felt compelled to do absolutely nothing, to the point where actions were impossible.

By the time Dolly appeared at his bedroom to say that there was a visitor, Master Malfoy, sir, Draco had already drifted off into the recesses of his mind, thinking, this time, of the approval in Father’s eyes whenever Draco did one of the things he now most regretted. He had already forgotten that there was someone at the door.

“Tell whoever it is,” he managed, without looking at her, “to go away.” His vocal chords hadn’t been used in a while, it seemed.

Dolly’s heavy footsteps hastened down the hall. Then, within moments, she was padding towards him again. 

“Master Malfoy, sir,” she was standing in the doorway and letting in rays of blinding sunlight. Draco brought one sweaty palm up to cover his eyes. “The gentleman won’t go sir,” she whispered. “He says he’s with the Auror Department.”

_By Merlin’s beard, what more did these people want from him?_

“Dolly,” Draco began, summoning all his patience, “please tell the Auror that I am currently indisposed.”

Dolly was off again, but all too soon, Draco heard her footsteps return. This time there was also the heavy clunking noise of someone walking towards him in inelegant boots. _Fuck._

“Malfoy, you git, I know you’re in there.”

Oh God. It was like a dragon had suddenly landed heavily on Draco’s chest and was breathing fire in his face. That was Potter’s voice.

Dolly came in first, and Draco saw one last opportunity at avoidance. “Dolly,” he said sternly, “do _not_ let Mr Potter in.”

Dolly’s big blue eyes looked at him disbelievingly for a moment. Then, Morgana bless the little creature, she started pushing against the door with all her might to keep Potter from entering.

“Malofy?” Potter sounded amused, just outside the door. “I’m not here to jerk you around on behalf of the Ministry, you know,”

Draco highly doubted that, but still. “Then what are you here for, Potter?’

“Your eighteen months are up!” said Potter a little disbelievingly. “They’ve been up three weeks, and you haven’t been seen anywhere in Wizarding Britain. In such a situation, it’s mandatory that we check up on our ex-convicts.”

This was a checkup, and it was being performed by Harry sodding Potter. When would Draco’s rotten luck ever run out?

“I’m really sorry,” Potter said, and the wanker even managed to sound genuinely bashful, “but I can’t complete the checkup until I have visual confirmation that you are in good health.”

Then, with a firm push, Potter stepped inside. Poor Dolly was almost squished between the door and the wall, but Draco told her to step aside just in time.

“Jesus,” Harry breathed. Who was this Jesus character muggleborns were always blabbering on about? Suddenly Draco recalled dimly that the room was a bit of a mess. That he himself was a bit of a mess. Bugger.

“Draco,” Potter’s voice had gone soft and pitiful and Draco hated it, hated him. “I’m taking you to St. Mungo’s.”


End file.
